TROOPER STAYS ALIVE
Tribe jumps out early, hold off Ambler to force Game 4
UPPER DUBLIN » Trooper wasn’t ready for its season to end Thursday night.
The sixth-seeded Tribe jumped out to a five-run lead and held on to beat No. 3 Ambler, 5-4, in Game 3 of the first round Perkiomen Valley Twilight League playoff series at Temple University Ambler Campus.
“My dad was telling me this is a character game,” Trooper’s Luke DeLeo said. “We just tried to do what we’ve been doing all season and hit the ball. That’s what we did today and we came out with the win.”
Trooper trails the series, 2-1, with Game 4 at Trooper Friday evening at 5:45 p.m.
DeLeo got the scoring started in the top of the fourth inning with a two-run double down the right field line.
“I saw an outside pitch,” he said. “I was expecting a curveball because it was 0-1. I saw an outside pitch and took it right down the line. They tried saying it was foul, I saw it right down the line though. I don’t believe it.”
In the fifth, Scott Young, Ryan Donahue and DeLeo knocked in runs to make it a 5-0 Trooper lead and knock Ambler starter Colin Kennedy out of the game.
The Brewers battled back.
They scored three runs in the sixth inning with Phil Pierfy scoring on a wild pitch and Nick Fasano and Chris Hens knocking in runs.
The bottom of the seventh started with Pete Moore working a walk and Eric Ruhland hitting a single. Pierfy laid down a bunt to try to put the tying run on second base, but DeLeo came up from his third base position and threw out the lead runner.
“There were no outs so we had to get the out,” DeLeo said. “I was up and it was bunted right at me. I was charging and I heard the catcher (Will Brownlowe) say, ‘Three.’ So I threw it to third and we got the out.”
Chris Kersey singled to score Ruhland to make it 5-4, but that’s as close as Ambler would get. Ryan McDonald came on to pitch for Trooper and recorded backto-back fly outs to tally the save.
“We’re happy we gave ourselves an opportunity to win the game there,” Ambler’s Andy Noga said. “It just didn’t pan out, but it’s a five-game series. They haven’t given up yet. We were in a similar situation last year when we were up 2-0 on Nor-Gwyn and they came back.”
Evan McKenna started for Trooper and got the win. He allowed three runs on four hits over six innings.
He only allowed one hit over the first five innings.
Kennedy took the loss for Ambler. In 4 1/3 innings he surrendered five runs on eight hits.
After winning the first two games of the series comfortably, Ambler does not think it came into Thursday’s game overconfident.
“Not really, not with this group,” Noga said. “We’re a good group of guys, a gritty group. No complacency here. We want to win every game. We were just a little slow to get going today, that was all.”
“We feel confident going into (Friday). We have Pete (Moore) on the mound. He’s the ace of our staff. It was tough not to get a sweep here, but we feel confident going into (Friday).”